Details of the promises made in the MVA manifesto are discussed below:

Financial independence and support for women

To promote financial independence, the MVA has promised to introduce the Mahalaxmi Scheme, offering a monthly allowance of Rs. 3,000 to women. This scheme is designed to provide consistent financial support to women, particularly those from economically disadvantaged sections of society. The allowance will help women manage household expenses, contribute to family income, and enhance their personal financial security. This is especially beneficial for women in rural and semi-urban areas, where access to employment opportunities and financial resources may be limited. Additionally, women will be eligible for six cooking gas cylinders annually at a subsidised rate of Rs. 500 each, significantly reducing the burden of fuel costs—a significant expense for many families. This initiative ensures that women can allocate their finances toward other essential needs, ultimately empowering them to have greater control over household economics.

In addition to this, the MVA promises free bus travel for women, which is a crucial step towards ensuring the mobility and freedom of women in Maharashtra. Public transportation is often a barrier to women’s participation in work and educational opportunities, particularly in rural areas. By removing this financial barrier, the MVA is making it easier for women to access markets, workplaces, schools, and healthcare facilities. Furthermore, the promise of one-time financial support of Rs. 1,00,000 for girls at the age of 18 is a vital initiative aimed at helping young women make their transition to adulthood with financial support. This one-time benefit will support young women in pursuing higher education, skill development, or other opportunities that can lead to economic independence.

Promoting women’s health and safety

The MVA’s manifesto places a strong emphasis on the health and safety of women and girls across Maharashtra. The introduction of the ‘Nirbhay Maharashtra’ policy and the ‘Shakti’ law demonstrates the government’s commitment to protecting women and children from violence and ensuring their safety. The Nirbhay Maharashtra Policy aims to create a robust, multi-tiered system for preventing and responding to gender-based violence, with a focus on rural areas and quick response units for immediate action. The Shakti Law, on the other hand, strengthens legal frameworks to provide faster trials, harsher penalties for crimes against women and children, and dedicated victim support cells. Together, these initiatives promise a comprehensive approach to women’s safety, combining prevention, swift legal action, and social support, creating a state where women can live free from fear and violence. These policies aim to create a comprehensive legal framework that not only deters gender-based violence but also offers immediate support and protection to victims. The enforcement of the Shakti law will help strengthen the legal system to deal with crimes against women and children more swiftly and effectively. These initiatives are essential in making women feel safe in their homes, workplaces, and public spaces.

In addition to this, the promise of provided free cervical cancer vaccines for girls aged 9 to 16 is a landmark health initiative that targets one of the leading causes of cancer among women in India. This preventive measure will help reduce the incidence of cervical cancer in Maharashtra by providing free access to the HPV vaccine, particularly benefiting girls from underprivileged backgrounds who may otherwise not have access to this vaccine. Additionally, the MVA government promises two optional leave days for female employees during menstruation. This progressive policy acknowledges the health challenges that menstruation can cause, providing women with the time and space to rest without the worry of losing income or job security. It sets a precedent for gender-sensitive workplace policies that prioritise the well-being of women employees.

Further, the plan to establish safe, clean, and accessible public restrooms for women addresses a long-standing issue, particularly in urban areas. Safe and hygienic public toilets are essential for women’s dignity and health, especially when they are out in public spaces. This initiative will improve access to sanitation and ensure that women feel more comfortable and secure in public spaces.

Empowerment through education, employment, and skill development

The MVA’s initiatives also focus on empowering women through education, skill development, and employment opportunities. A key proposal is the introduction of self-defence lessons, which will be provided to young girls as part of the school curriculum. These lessons will equip girls with the physical and mental tools they need to protect themselves in situations of danger, contributing to greater self-confidence and security. Additionally, the establishment of a separate department for the empowerment of self-help groups (SHGs) is a significant step toward fostering leadership skills and economic independence for rural women. SHGs have been effective in empowering women by enabling them to pool resources, share knowledge, and engage in income-generating activities. The department will help expand the reach of these groups, provide them with market access for their products, and create opportunities for women to take on leadership roles in their communities.

The MVA’s commitment to building hostels for girls in each taluka is another important step toward ensuring that girls from rural and underserved areas can pursue education without worrying about accommodation. For many rural families, sending girls to distant schools or colleges is a challenge due to the lack of safe and affordable lodging options. By building hostels in each taluka, the MVA will provide a safe, convenient, and cost-effective solution, ensuring that young women have equal access to education, regardless of their geographical location.

Additionally, the MVA promises the formation of a dedicated Ministry for Child Welfare, which will focus on the holistic development and protection of children, particularly girls. This ministry will prioritise issues like access to quality education, health services, and protection from abuse, while also addressing the needs of children in vulnerable situations.

Equal pay and respect for women’s rights

The MVA government has committed to addressing economic disparities by pushing for equal pay for men and women in the unorganised rural sector. Women in this sector, particularly in agriculture and small-scale industries, are often paid significantly less than their male counterparts for the same work. By enforcing equal pay laws, the MVA aims to ensure that women are compensated fairly for their contributions, which will help reduce the gender wage gap in rural areas and foster greater economic equity.

The manifesto also includes measures to ensure that widows are treated with dignity and respect. Laws will be enacted to prevent forced adherence to harmful practices imposed on widows, such as social ostracism or forced isolation. These laws will protect widows’ rights and ensure that they are treated with respect and provided opportunities for economic empowerment. Additionally, the MVA aims to prioritise employment for widows and single women, creating targeted schemes to help them gain financial independence and reintegrate into the workforce.

To support women who have left the workforce due to family or personal reasons, the MVA promises to create special schemes to help them re-enter the workforce. These schemes will provide women with the necessary training, resources, and job placement opportunities to restart their careers and contribute to national progress.

Establishing safe and inclusive communities for all

The MVA government’s vision also includes the development of safe cities for vulnerable populations, including women, children, senior citizens, and people with disabilities. This initiative will focus on improving urban planning, infrastructure, and law enforcement to create safer public spaces, enhance accessibility, and provide protection to marginalised groups. This initiative reflects the MVA’s broader goal of fostering inclusive communities where everyone, regardless of gender, age, or ability, can live with dignity and safety.

The government also plans to regularly update the women’s policy every three years, ensuring that it remains responsive to the evolving needs of women in Maharashtra. This adaptability is crucial in ensuring that the policy stays relevant and effective in addressing the challenges that women face, particularly in rapidly changing social and economic landscapes.

MVA’s aim to build a Maharashtra where women thrive

The MVA’s manifesto for women reflects a comprehensive, forward-looking vision that places women’s health, safety, financial independence, and empowerment at the center of Maharashtra’s development. These initiatives aim to build a Maharashtra where women can move freely, access equal opportunities, and lead empowered lives. By addressing the multifaceted needs of women, this manifesto demonstrates a commitment to gender equality and the belief that women’s empowerment is essential for Maharashtra’s progress as a whole. With these reforms, Maharashtra has the potential to become a leader in gender equality, setting an example for other states in creating a just and inclusive society.

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The post MVA’s bold promise: A transformative vision for women’s empowerment in Maharashtra appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Join us for this essential conversation, featuring an exclusive introduction by Teesta Setalvad.

Don’t miss this opportunity to gain insight into the pressing issues facing Maharashtra’s farmers!

Transcript

Teesta Setalvad : Sir we like to know from you about the entire crisis in Maharashtras particularly given both the regional imbalance in Maharashtra and the fact that election are coming just around the corner 22 days away. What should be the immediate intervention and the middle and long term?

Vijay Jawandhia : Actually when you talk about the agricultural crisis, it is the crisis of all India, Though, according to Constitution of India, Agriculture is a State Subject the solution to crisis in agriculture is not only with state, a solution lies with Centre because of the 1991 new Economic policies of globalisation privatisation and world trade.

Everything –decisions of policy etc—are with the Centre, not only with the state. So if at all the agriculture crisis of Maharashtra is to be discussed, it must be in the background of the policies of the central government regarding agriculture.

After Modi became prime minister (2014), instead of solving the problems of the farmer, problems have become more critical. While Manmohan Singh started the process of liberalisation in 1991, but I think he realised later that the gap between the rural and urban economy has increasing (and is untenable). He realised this because he is an economist,  less a politician and even less an academic. I think because of the many interventions by P Sainath and people like that that Manmohan Singh realised that the gap between the rural and urban economy is increasing.

Between UPA I and II in election year, 2008, he took 3 major decisions to bridge this gap of urban and rural of divide. He realised that there is an urgent need to pump money into rural economy and so he took three major decisions. He had already given Rs 40,000 crores for the implementation of MNREGA throughout the country in the first budget in 2005. Thereafter, he took the next decision to give loan waiver to the tune of Rs 70000 crore for all farmers of India. This ensured that money was pumped in the rural economy.

Then in 2008 in one stroke in one year he (implementing the recommendations of the MS Swaminathan Commission on MSP), he increased the MSP of all the crops from 28 percent 50 percent. In one stroke in one year, he raised Minimum Support Price (MSP), as per the MS Swaminathan Commsision recommendations from 28 per cent to 50 per cent for all crops. Even Manmohan Singh could not continue these policies in UPA II. That advantage was taken by Narendra Modi who campaigned for his own prime ministership saying that the policies of the Manmohan Singh government amounted to “mar jawan, and mar kisan”When I come to power, I will give you 50 percent profit old all the cost; that was his campaign of 2014.

The moment he became Prime Minister, he immediately (turned turtle). On affidavit to the Supreme Court, he argued that this kind of pricing (was untenable) because it will distort market. Then he kept contradicting himself, going back on his own promises.

Aur uske baad wo khud ki hi baton ko ulate gaye. Hum isko dekh sakte hain, ki unhone ye kaha, phir unhone kaha ki main kisano ki aamdani dugani karunga, kaise karenge malum nahi hain uska kuch. Uska abhi tak kuch jawab nahi hain. Phir unhone kisano ke liye kaha ki main PM kisan Sanman Nidhi de raha hoon 6000 rupaye’ that was also a distortion. Wo bhi distortion tha. Unhone mukhyamantrion ko Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Raman Singh ko chitthiya likhi ki aap jo bonus deke kharidi karte ho wo band kar do. Main isko isliye ye baat keh raha hoon ki yeh aaj ke sthiti mein Maharashtra ke liye bhi bahot jaruri hai jo Modi bonus dene ka virodh kar rahe the, main baki ki baton ko taal deta hoon. This is crucial for Maharashtra now. The Modi that was opposing bonus then, this time during the Rajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarh elections (Vidhan Sabha) he asserted bonus.

Par jo Modi bonus dene ka virodh kar rahe the apne Mukhyamantrion ko likh rahe the wohi Modi ne is samay ke Vidhan Sabha ke chunav mein aap dekhiye isko underline kijiye. Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, aur Rajasthan ke vidhansabha chunav ka samay. Modi ji ne kya kaha ki Chattisgarh mein Baghel aapko RS 3100 dhan ka daam de raha hai main 3200 dunga. That is 30% above MSP of padi (rice). Madhyapradesh, Rajasthan mein kaha ki main aapko 20% bonus deke 2700 rupaye mein gehu kharidi karunga. Diya ke nahi diya. Maine usi samay unko likha ki aap desh ke Pradhan Mantri ho –Modi ki guarantee de rahe ho –in rajyon mein aap to desh ke Pradhan mantri ho. Phir ye jo Modi ki guarantee hai gehu ko aur dhan ko baki ke fasalo ko kyu nahi dete ho? Why don’t you increase the prices of all crops by the same 20-30 per cent?

Aur baki ke fasalo ko 20% 30% daam badha kar aap de doge to aap jo Swaminathan ko Bharat Ratna de rahe ho unka jo C2+ 50% hai wo bhi implement hoga. Swarg mein unki Aatma ko Sshanti milegi. I have written this to him also. And to our Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister also (Maharashtra). Mujhe aisa lagta hai ki aaj ke jamane ki aaj ki sthiti mein Maharashtra ke kisano ko agar madad karni hai aur khaas kar ke Marathwada aur Vidarbha ke kisano ko then cotton farmer and soyabean farmer must get 20% above the MSP. And that guarantee should be given by Narendra Modi or if not by Narendra Modi, should be given by Sharad Pawar and Mahavikas Aghadi.

Then and only then can the farmer survive in Maharashtra.

I am saying this because aaj dekhiye aaj kya ho raha hai: inhone maar khaya loksabha mein, Modi ne, use thode se hoshiyar ho gaye wo. Ab wo soyabean ke liye kya keh rahe hain ki humne import duty badha dee hai khaane ke tel par ki. Aur khane ke tel par ki import duty badha di hain, uske karan ab kisano ko soyabean ke acche daam milenge. Shivraj Singh Chauhan (union Agriculture minister) is now and then praising Modi ki dekho kisano ke liye kitna bada kaam kar rahe hain, aisa ho gaya waisa ho gaya hain.

Aapko yaad hoga ki Shivraj Singh Chauhan ko Madhya Pradesh ke kisano ne raste par roka tha aur wo ruke bhi the aur unhone phir se wohi jhuti baat kahi ki humne impute duty badha di gayi hain. Ab aapko ache daam milne wale hain, hum 4892 rupaye jo MSP hain soyabean ki uspe kharidne wale hai aur 25% ki jagah hum jyada kharidenge vagere vagere.

Main aapko batata hoon ki isse kisano ko daam jyada mil rahe hain, par wo kitne mil rahe hain 4200, 4300, 44,000 rupaye mil rahe hain. MSP bhi nahi mil rahi hain. Aur jo Madhya Pradesh ka kisan 6000 rupaye maang raha hain wo bhi mil nahi sakta. Uska main karan kya hain soyabean ke daam ye khane ke tel par nirbhar nahi hain. Soyabean ke daam ye DOC jo uski export hoti hain uss par nirbhar thi. Aur aaj DOC ke daam hee nahi badh rahe hai

Maine Shivraj Singh Chauhan ji ko chitthi likhi hain uss mein saaf likha hain ki aap kisano ko gumrah kar rahe hain. Jhuta bol rahe hain aap. Soyabean ko 6000 rupaye jo Madhya Pradesh ka kisan daam mang raha hain wo tab tak ke nahi mil sakte jab tak ke Rs 5000 quintal DOC ka daam nahi hota hain.

The Oil Cake DOC, jo soyabean mein ka tel nikalne ke baad jo bachata hain jisko hum dhep bolte hain ya khali bolte hain jo animal husbandry mein istemaal hota hain, ya poultry mein istemaal hoti hain. Aur wo isliye nahi mil sakti, kyu ki duniya ke bazaar mein DOC ko daam hi nahi hain. Hamare desh mein DOC ko daam milte the. Uska karan tha hum GM DOC ki dhep import nahi karne dete the. Main aapko kehta hoon ki Yavatmaal zille ke ek market committee mein vyapari aur kisano mein maramari ho gayi. Usne mujhe encourage kiya ki main Shivraj Singh Chauhan ko chitthi likhu. That pushed me to write a letter to Shivraj isngh Chouhan,

Teesta Setalvad :-      Ye kab ki baat hai Sir?

Vijay Jawandhia :-     Ye abhi ki baat hai 15 din pehle ki, Kyo jhagda hua malum hain, vo kisan vyapari ko kya bolta hain 150 rupaya liter khane ka tel ho gaya. Kyuki ye BJP wale prachar kar rahe hai na Modi se leke, Shivraj Singh Chauhan se sab log ki humne khane ke tel pe impute duty lagayi, ab tel ke daam badh gaye, uske daam milenge aapko. Wo bolta hain 150 rupaya tel ho gaya. Aap soyabean ko daam nahi de rahe ho. Kuch saal pehle Rs 100 per litre was the DOC cost, then soya bean farmers got their price. Today farmers are battling traders in rural Maharashtra. The farmer has no idea of the correlation between the price of DOC that was earlier Rs 100 per litre and today is at nothing. How does the poor Indian farmer know that in the world market the price of soya beans has dropped from 16 dollars per bushel to 10 dollars per bushel.He does not know that the prices which were 450-500 dollar per tonne (10 quintals) is today fallen to 320-330-340 dollars per tonne. He also does not know of the games played by the Modi government that is allowing the import of GM Soya beans. Earlier we did not allow import of GM Soya beans. Nowhere in the world is non GM soya beans produced like it is here….

Teesta Setalvad :-      This is the main reason?

Vijay Jawandhia :-     Yes this is the main reason. If the farmer is given a better price for soya beans than import of GM soya beans will flood the market; these are cheap Rs 27/28 per kilograms. Now if in a real sense farmers must be given Rs 6,000 per quintal as they are demanding (and Devendra Phadnavis and Girish Mahajan had fooled farmers by asserting), this price must be given. MP farmers are demanding this of Shivraj Singh Chouhan, of Modi. Now this means that the 20 % -30 % bonus that is being promised to wheat and grains should also be given to soyabeans and cotton. Why now? I have written to PM Modi on this.

Listen, why am I talking about cotton prices also? Two years back farmers used to get Rs 10,000 per quintal. Then Modi was PM. Today also he is PM. Market is the same, market committee is the same. Why are prices today not even at Rs 7-7500 per quinta? Why are farmers not getting the prices they were two years ago? Now this is the reality, two years back the US market was doing well, so cotton farmers got the prices; presently the market there is down, in depression, farmers are not being given their due. Now is America going to decide price of crops? If America is going to fix the prices of agriculture produce is our country then what is the need for you to be the Prime Minister of India, Mr Modi? Why do we need an Indian government?

Politicians are deluding us, talking half-truths. There is no country in the world, not even developed capitalist democracies where farming happens without subsidies. India is the only country, in the name of technology, in the name of development, small farmers are being burdened, denied credit and subsidy. We have become an inflationary economy; Pay Commissions raise the renumeration/salaries of other sections but when it comes to the farming sector, we resent the prices due for produce to the farmers! The increase there is in geometric proportions but when it comes to wages of farm labour and prices of crops for farmers, these are in arithmetric proportion. How is this sab ka saath, sab ka vikas?

Teesta Setalvad—Thank You

The post Can MVA Reverse Modi Govt’s Broken Promises to Farmers? | Vijay Jawandhia & Teesta Setalvad appeared first on SabrangIndia.

If Maharashtra pulled a surprise in May-June 2024 and gave a limping opposition,  31 (32) parliamentary seats (out of 48) in the state, four of the six in Mumbai were one by the secular Maha Vikas Aghadi and one narrowly lost, by just 48 votes! Come November 20, this urbs prima, India’s much loved and coveted cosmopolis which, despite being burdened by numbers and a vicious construction lobby continues to dominate people’s dreams and aspirations will again play weather cock for the second largest state in the country. Maha Yuti (MY) or Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA)? In the 36 assembly seats in the state’s capital, these state elections will throw up huge challenges.

How do things look 27 days before the vote is cast?            

The opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi that has an edge today is not helping matters for itself by the petty procrastinations on seat sharing, a malaise that also dogs the Maha Yuti who with better ‘media management’ continues to control the narrative! Today October 23, poll pundits and MVA workers anxiously await the final seat distribution tally if not the actual tickets distribution. October 29 is the last date for filing nominations and the last date for withdrawals in November 4. Scrutiny of nominations will be on October 30.

Maharashtra has seen a political roller coaster since the last Vidhan Sabha elections in 2019. On the point of forming a government, the Maha Yuti received a jolt when the Maha Vikas Aghadi government was sworn in with Udhav Balasaheb Thackeray as chief minister. His stewardship of the state during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis has been hailed by critics and supporters alike and that plus the support drawn from out of a sentiment of subsequent betrayal by Eknath Shinde is something that (Shiv Sena-UBT) is banking on. Challenged however, by a growing acceptability of the rogue breakaway faction, Eknath Shinde, Udhav Thackeray’s failing health and an absence of accessibility for cadres and satraps is one major drawback that the father-son party, Udhav Thackeray and Aditya Thackeray face. For both him, and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) this state election is a question of lasting political relevance and survival. No wonder then that media speculation about the Pawar patriarch’s dream of installing MP from Baramati, Supriya Sule as the state’s first woman chief minister has also been rife. The Indian National Congress (INC) –on the other hand—upbeat,  after a good showing in the Lok Sabha elections, winning 13 Parliamentary seats, has displayed its usual nonchalant arrogance rubbing alliance partners the wrong way, not sprucing up its organisational set up and even internally ‘bargaining’ with the MahaYuti/BJP by individual candidates all of which will severely affect the victory of their own candidates. Finally, the MVA’s distancing and reluctance to have a collaborative discussion with the left, CPI-M, CPI, Peasants and Workers Party (PWP) and the newly formed Progressive Republican Alliance (a front of Dalit organisations and activists formed to counter the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi-VBA) has further created schisms among the natural support base of the MVA.

This is not to say that all is hunky dory in the Maha Yuti camp either, be it in terms of equations or seat sharing. Shinde’s popularity is a serious stumbling block for the RSS-Phadnavis lobby and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is still projected by pollsters to fall below 70 or even 60 seats in the final tally. As recently reported, Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena is opposing the BJP’s choice of four candidates in the list of 99 released by the party last Monday. These are the seats on Kalyan East, Tbane, Navi Mumbai and Murbad. One narrative that has captured the imagination of the Maharashtrian people is the cynical ‘Gujarati grab’ of projects and resources as epitomised by the Pm-HM combine (Narendra Modi-Amit Shah). Efforts at fielding ‘independent’ well-healed candidates to cut the MVA vote a la Haryana, pressurize Returning Officers (RO) to not follow the rule book in casting and counting of votes etc are aggressively afoot, with the Delhi regime directly allegedly involved.

All this being the case what do the numbers say?

Of the 36 assembly segments in Maharashtra, in 2019, the MVA (that is the INC and NCP Sharad Pawar) had won 12 seats. In the same 36 assembly segments in 2024, during the April-May 2024 Lok Sabha Polls, the MVA was leading in 20 Assembly segments, suggesting one, that after the ignominious split in the SS and NCP (June 2022), the MVA has garnered a wider support base in eight more segments. The presence of the UBT Sena in the MVA is one obvious reason though both this party and Pawar’s NCP have suffered in their parties’ being split.

The 20 assembly segments that MVA leads in are Anushaktinagar, Chembur, Dharavi, Sion Koliwada, Worli, Shivri, Byculla, Mumbadevi, Chandivli, Kurla, Kalina, Bandra East, Versova, Dindoshi, Jogeshwari (east), Ghatkopar (west), Vikhroli, Bhandup west, Mankhurd and Malad. Of these eight seats had been won by the factions and parties that belong to the MahaYuti alliance: Anushaktinagar (sitting MLA Nawab Mallik, NCP-AP), Sion Koliwada (sitting MLA R Tamil Selvan, BJP), Byculla (sitting MLA Yamini Jadhav, Shinde Sena), Dilip Lande- Shinde Sena (Shinde), Kurla (sitting MLA, Mangesh Kudalkar, Shinde Sena), Versova (sitting MLA Bharati Lavhekar, BJP), Jogeshwari east (sitting MLA, Ravindra Vaikar), Ghatkopar (sitting MLA, Ram Kadam, BJP).

Of the rest of the 16 seats, there are some six seats that respective parties have won with narrow margins. These include three seats won by the MahaYuti Alliance and three by the Maha Vikas Aghadi. Of these six, the Chembur assembly seat could be a cake walk for the MVA as both the sitting MLA, Prakash Phatarpherkar of the UBT Sena and the runner up Chandrakant Handore from the INC (who lost by a margin of 19,018 votes) are from the same alliance; similarly in Kalina, the sitting MLA, Sanjay Potnis of the UBT Sena defeated George Abraham of the INC by a mere 4.931 votes and both parties are in the same alliance now.

The major spoiler this time could be the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) that has announced it will contest from Jogeshwari (east), Dindoshi, Malad, Andheri east, Andheri west, Ghatkopar east and Ghatkopar west apart from Chembur. Raj Thackeray’s Mahanavnirman Sena (MNS) has reportedly decided also to contest with his son Amit Thackeray being pitted against Thackeray scion, Aditya Thackeray in Worli.

In the 2019 polls, the Raj Thackeray MNC had been runner up in a significant number of assembly seats: Mahim (Sandeep Deshpande who lost by 18,647 votes),  Shivri Santosh Nalwade by 39337 votes), Mulund (Harshala Rajesh Chavan lost by 57,348 votes), Bhandup West (Sandeep Prabhakar Jalgaonkar who lost by a margin of 29,173 votes), Ghatkopar east (Satish Pawar lost by 53, 319 votes), Magathane (Nayan Kadam who lost by 46, 547 votes). This time in 2024 the MNS has declared its intention of contesting a total of 250 plus seats of the total of 288 assembly seats.

At the end of the day, upcoming weeks of polling, the grit of organizational heft will carry the day. The manipulations and money power –condoned by a pliant ECI—will help the ruling alliance. Does the Maha Vikas Aghadi have it in itself to rise to the occasion?

Related:

M’tra: A blow to BJP-NDA, a shot in the arm for MVA-INDIA

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The post The curious case of Mumbai Mahanagari’s 36 seats: who holds the winning card? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In the Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra in 2024, the people gave a remarkable 30 of the 48 seats to the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA-INDIA), an increase of 25 seats compared to 2019; voters gave only 17 seats to the NDA, a drop of 24 seats. An independent Congress rebel has won, and he has officially returned to the Congress, making the MVA total 31 out of 48 seats. Three Union Ministers of the BJP were defeated, along with 20 sitting MPs from the BJP-NDA.

The number of seats won and the votes secured by each party in Maharashtra in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections is telling: MVA-INDIA – Congress – 13/17 seats (16.9 %), Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) – 9/21 seats (16.7 %), NCP (Sharad Pawar) – 8/10 seats (10.3 %). NDA – BJP – 9/28 seats (26.1 %), Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) – 7/15 seats (13 %), NCP (Ajit Pawar) – 1/4 seats (3.6 %), Rashtriya Samaj Party – 0/1 seat (0.8 %).

While these are certainly welcome developments, the voting percentage of the two fronts is far too close for comfort. For MVA-INDIA the percentage of voter support stands at 44 %, and for a while for the NDA it is 43.6 %.

In sharp contrast, the 2019 Lok Sabha election result for 48 seats was as follows: NDA – 41 seats (51.34 % votes), BJP – 23 seats (27.84 % votes), SS – 18 seats (23.5 % votes), UPA – 5 seats (32.01 % votes), NCP – 4 seats (15.66 % votes), INC – 1 seat (16.41 % votes), AIMIM (Aurangabad) – 1 seat (0.73 % votes), Independent (Amravati, later pro-BJP) – 1 seat (total of all independents and other smaller parties 3.72 % votes), Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA – Prakash Ambedkar) – 0 seats (6.92 % votes), Total – 48 seats (100 % votes).

The MVA fought the 2024 election with its back to the wall. Under pressure of the Modi regime, the Election Commission of India (ECI) gave both the name of the party and its symbol to the rebel SS and NCP factions led by Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar respectively. The original parties led by Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar were forced to take new election symbols. Money and media power were obviously largely controlled by the BJP. But the MVA fought back unitedly with grit and determination, and the people supported it.

The Maharashtra Lok Sabha results are even more significant because the state faces its Vidhan Sabha elections within just three more months, in October 2024.

A preliminary analysis of the Maharashtra Lok Sabha election results will reveal the following seven main reasons for the NDA setback and the MVA victory.

Corrupt and immoral Acts by BJP

First, the people were sick of the BJP and its corrupt and immoral acts in the state in the last two years, which resulted in the splits in the SS, and then in the NCP, and then again nibbling at some of the Congress leaders. Over 80 MLAs out of the 100-odd MLAs of the SS and the NCP together were induced to support the BJP by using a combination of threats and blandishments. It was through such dirty conspiracies that the discredited Shinde-Fadnavis-Ajit Pawar state government was brought into existence. The corrupt and unprincipled splintering of the SS and NCP led to a big sympathy wave for their original leaders and parties.

In such a situation, the veteran NCP leader of many battles Sharad Pawar, SS leader Uddhav Thackeray, and INC leader Nana Patole, spearheaded the resistance of the people against this political chicanery, and strengthened the unity of the MVA, which was further buttressed by the formation of the INDIA bloc at the national level. In the 2019 Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections also, Sharad Pawar had played a salutary role of fighting against the BJP.

The most high-profile Lok Sabha election contest in Maharashtra this time was between Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule, and Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra Pawar. Supriya Sule won by over 1.5 lakh votes. MVA leaders addressed scores of huge public meetings in their election campaign. In several constituencies, it became like an election of the people against the BJP.

Economic distress and struggles against this   

The second factor was clearly economic distress. The growing crisis in unemployment, inflation, agrarian distress, education, health, food security, and other sectors, and also the growing struggles on these issues in the state over the last few years, played a major part in ensuring the alienation of the people from the BJP-NDA.

In the agrarian sector, the falling prices of onions, cotton, soya bean, sugarcane, and milk, became a major issue. So also were the recurring droughts, unseasonal rains, and hailstorms, for which no relief was forthcoming. The anger of the scheme workers and other unorganised sections was palpable. On all these issues, there were sustained independent struggles and strikes by peasant and worker organisations in Maharashtra. As a result, the issue of economic distress had repercussions in all the regions of the state. As against the election campaign by Modi, Shah, Yogi, Nadda, Fadnavis, and other BJP leaders who only tried to create and intensify communal polarisation, the MVA-INDIA election campaign concentrated on these burning issues of the people.

Caste and reservations

The third factor was that of caste, and reservations. This was a direct result of the agrarian crisis and burgeoning unemployment. In the Marathwada region, where the Maratha quota stir was the most intense, the BJP could not win even a single of the eight MP seats in the region. In other regions also this issue hit the BJP. Another significant feature of this election was the massive support of Muslims and other minorities to the MVA-INDIA bloc. This support also extended to the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) group, because of it being a part of the MVA along with the Congress and the NCP, and also because Uddhav Thackeray as Chief Minister and later, had taken a balanced stand, which was the exact opposite of his father.

Spoilers checkmated

The fourth factor was the people themselves partly isolating the traditional spoilers like the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) led by Prakash Ambedkar, and the AIMIM led by Asaduddin Owaissi. Although the VBA put up its candidates in around 35 Lok Sabha seats, unlike in 2019, it could not fully achieve its desired aim of helping the BJP win. In the Akola Lok Sabha seat in Vidarbha, which Prakash Ambedkar himself contested, he came third behind the BJP and the Congress. In three other seats also, viz. Buldhana, Hatkanangale, and Mumbai North West, the votes polled by the VBA were more than the victory margins of the BJP-NDA candidates. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the VBA had helped the BJP-NDA to win in 11 seats.

Attack on Maharashtrian identity and pride   

The fifth factor was the attack on Maharashtrian identity and pride. In the past few years, a large number of industries and projects which had been earmarked for Maharashtra were arbitrarily shifted to Gujarat by the Modi regime. This was a source of great heartburn, because it adversely affected employment and development. On top of that, in his election speeches in Maharashtra, Modi insulted MVA leaders by calling Sharad Pawar a “bhatakti aatma” (wandering soul). He also called Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena a “nakli” (fake) Sena. All this was naturally seen by the people as insulting Maharashtrian identity and pride. This issue had big repercussions throughout the state.

Stiff competition to ‘Godi Media’ 

The sixth factor was that, even so far as the media is concerned, this time several popular independent media outlets and YouTube channels were seen by lakhs of people, giving a stiff competition to the corporate Godi media, and exposing its increasing loss of credibility. Also, several social organisations came together and hit the streets by organising their own public meetings and other imaginative programmes under different banners, like the ‘Nirbhay Bano Andolan’, ‘Nirdhar Maharashtracha (Determination of Maharashtra)’, and so on. With the encouraging poll results in the country and the state, this trend is sure to intensify in future.

Defence of democracy, secularism, and constitution    

And the seventh and last factor was, of course, the paramount issue in this whole election throughout the country – the defence of democracy, secularism, and the Constitution. The ‘400 paar’ slogan of the BJP was rightly interpreted by large sections of the people as showing its malignant intention to change and destroy the Constitution, and attack the rights given therein to the economically exploited and the socially oppressed. This became a major issue for Dalits, because Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar is regarded as one of the prime architects of the Constitution of India. But it was not an issue only for Dalits. It influenced large sections of the patriotic people in the state and the country. And the MVA-INDIA election campaign rightly concentrated on this issue. This concerted campaign had the desired impact.

Role of the Left

So far as the CPI(M) and the Left were concerned, the MVA did not leave any seat for them in the seat sharing, in spite of their concerted efforts. In the two seats of Dindori (ST) in Nashik district and Palghar (ST) in Palghar district, the CPI(M) has a mass base of around one lakh votes each. It also has a reasonable presence in some other seats. But the Party avoided fighting these seats outside the MVA, since it would have divided the secular vote and helped the BJP to win. CPI(M) activists all over Maharashtra did good and sustained work to ensure the victory of several MVA candidates. This was warmly acknowledged by the top leadership of the MVA itself. It is expected that the CPI(M) and the Left will contest some seats as part of the MVA in the coming state assembly elections.

After this salutary victory in the Lok Sabha elections, the MVA-INDIA bloc will have to be even more vigilant, and redouble its efforts and its inclusivity to throw the BJP-NDA out of power in the ensuing Vidhan Sabha elections in Maharashtra which will take place in October 2024.

(The author is Member, CPI (M) Polit Bureau and National President, All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS)

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabrangindia. 

Related:

M’tra: A blow to BJP-NDA, a shot in the arm for MVA-INDIA

The post Lok Sabha polls 2024, M’tra: Blow to BJP-NDA, boost for MVA-INDIA appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Uttar Pradesh, with 80 Lok Sabha seats, gave 43 seats to the INDIA bloc, an increase of 37 compared to 2019; it gave 36 seats to the NDA, a drop of 28. One independent has won there. There is no doubt that there was an extraordinary performance by the INDIA bloc in UP.

Significant Victory for MVA-INDIA

Coming to Maharashtra, the 2019 Lok Sabha election result for 48 seats was as follows: BJP – 23 seats (27.84 % votes), SS – 18 seats (23.5 % votes), NDA – 41 seats (51.34 % votes), NCP – 4 seats (15.66 % votes), INC – 1 seat (16.41 % votes), UPA – 5 seats (32.01 % votes), AIMIM (Aurangabad) – 1 seat (0.73 % votes), Independent (Amravati, later pro-BJP) – 1 seat (total of all independents and other smaller parties 3.72 % votes), Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA – Prakash Ambedkar) – 0 seats (6.92 % votes), Total – 48 seats (100 % votes).

In sharp contrast, in 2024, the people gave 30 of the 48 seats to the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA-INDIA), an increase of 25 seats compared to 2019; they gave only 17 seats to the NDA, a drop of 24. An independent Congress rebel has won, and he is likely to return to the MVA.

While this is certainly a welcome development, the voting percentage of the two fronts is too close for comfort. For MVA-INDIA it is 44 %, and for NDA it is 43.6 %.

The number of seats won and the votes secured by each party in Maharashtra is as follows: MVA-INDIA – Congress – 13/17 seats (16.9 %), Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) – 9/21 seats (16.7 %), NCP (Sharad Pawar) – 8/10 seats (10.3 %). NDA – BJP – 9/28 seats (26.1 %), Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) – 7/15 seats (13 %), NCP (Ajit Pawar) – 1/4 seats (3.6 %), Rashtriya Samaj Party – 0/1 seat (0.8 %). The Mumbai North West seat was won by the Shinde Sena over the Thackeray Sena by only 48 votes, after recounts. The result will be challenged in the courts.

The MVA fought this election with its back to the wall. So far as the SS (UBT) and NCP (SP)were concerned, under pressure of the BJP, the Election Commission of India (ECI) gave both the name of the party and its symbol to the rebel factions led by Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar respectively. The original parties led by Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar were forced to take new election symbols. Money and media power were obviously controlled by the BJP. But the MVA fought back unitedly with grit and determination, and the people supported it.

The Maharashtra Lok Sabha results have become even more significant because the state faces its Vidhan Sabha elections within just four more months, in October 2024.

In a detailed write-up titled “The Maharashtra Lok Sabha Election Scene”, written and published before the results were declared, we had concluded as follows, “To sum up, if it is a reasonably fair election, it surely seems to be advantage MVA-INDIA, which should be able to win more than half the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra this time, as against only five seats which the opposition had won in the state in 2019. That in itself would be a big and significant advance in this crucial nationwide battle for the defence of the livelihood of the people, and for the defence of democracy, secularism, and the Constitution itself.” This assessment has been vindicated by the results.

What Led to this Result?

A preliminary analysis of the Maharashtra Lok Sabha election results will reveal the following main reasons for the NDA setback and the MVA victory.

First, the people were sick of the BJP and its corrupt and immoral acts in the state in the last two years, which resulted in the splits in the SS, and then in the NCP, and then again nibbling at some of the Congress leaders. Over 80 MLAs out of the 100-odd MLAs of the SS and the NCP together were induced to support the BJP by using a combination of threats and blandishments. It was through such dirty conspiracies that the discredited Shinde-Fadnavis-Ajit Pawar state government was brought into existence. The corrupt and unprincipled splintering of the SS and NCP led to a big sympathy wave for their original leaders and activists.

In such a situation, the veteran NCP leader of many battles Sharad Pawar, SS leader Uddhav Thackeray, and INC leader Nana Patole, spearheaded the resistance of the people against this political chicanery, and strengthened the unity of the MVA, which was further buttressed by the formation of the INDIA bloc at the national level. In the 2019 Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections also, Sharad Pawar had played a salutary role of fighting against the BJP. The most high-profile Lok Sabha election contest in Maharashtra this time was between Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule, and Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra Pawar. Supriya Sule won by over 1.5 lakh votes. MVA leaders addressed scores of huge public meetings as part of their election campaign. In several constituencies, it became like an election of the people against the BJP.

The second factor was clearly economic distress. The growing crisis in unemployment, inflation, agrarian distress, education, health, food security, and other sectors, and also the growing struggles on these issues in the state over the last few years, played a major part in ensuring the alienation of the people from the BJP-NDA. In the agrarian sector, the falling prices of onions, cotton, soyabean, sugarcane, and milk, became a major issue. So also were the recurring droughts, unseasonal rains, and hailstorms, for which no relief was forthcoming. The anger of the scheme workers and other unorganised sections was palpable. Naturally, the issue of economic distress had repercussions in all the regions of the state. As against the election campaign by Modi, Shah, Yogi, Nadda, Fadnavis, and other BJP leaders who only tried to create and intensify communal polarisation, the MVA-INDIA election campaign concentrated on these burning issues of the people and tried to put forth alternatives.

The third factor was that of caste, and reservations. This was a direct result of the agrarian crisis and burgeoning unemployment. We have briefly dealt with this in our last piece, hence no repetition is necessary. But it should be noted that in the Marathwada region, where the Maratha quota stir was the most intense, the BJP could not win even a single of the eight MP seats in the region. In other regions also it hit the BJP. Another significant feature of this election was the massive support of Muslims and other minorities to the MVA-INDIA bloc. This support also extended to the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) group, because of it being a part of the MVA along with the Congress and the NCP, and also because Uddhav Thackeray as Chief Minister, and later, had taken a secular stand, which was the opposite of his father.

The fourth factor was the people themselves isolating the traditional spoilers like the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) led by Prakash Ambedkar, the AIMIM led by Asaduddin Owaissi, and others. Although the VBA put up its candidates in around 35 Lok Sabha seats, unlike in 2019, it could not achieve its desired aim of helping the BJP win, except perhaps in the Akola Lok Sabha seat in Vidarbha, which Prakash Ambedkar himself contested, and where he came third behind the BJP and the Congress. This trend was one of the welcome features of this election.

The fifth factor was the attack on Maharashtrian identity and pride. In the past few years, a large number of industries and projects which had been earmarked for Maharashtra were arbitrarily shifted to Gujarat by the Modi regime. This was a source of great heartburn, because it adversely affected employment and development. On top of that, in his election speeches in Maharashtra, Modi insulted MVA leaders by calling Sharad Pawar a “bhatakti aatma” (wandering soul). He also called Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena a “nakli” (fake) Sena. All this was naturally used by the MVA campaign to attack the BJP-NDA for insulting Maharashtrian identity and pride. This issue had big repercussions throughout the state.

The sixth factor was that, even so far as the media is concerned, this time several popular independent media outlets and YouTube channels were seen by lakhs of people, giving a stiff competition to the corporate Godi media, and exposing its increasing loss of credibility. Also, several social organisations came together and hit the streets by organising their own public meetings and other imaginative programmes under different banners, like the ‘Nirbhay Bano Andolan’, ‘Vote for Democracy’, ‘Nirdhar Maharashtracha (Determination of Maharashtra)’, and so on. With the encouraging poll results in the country and the state, this trend is sure to intensify in future.

And the seventh and last factor was, of course, the paramount issue in this whole election throughout the country – the defence of democracy, secularism, and the Constitution. The ‘400 paar’ slogan of the BJP was rightly interpreted by large sections of the people as showing its malignant intention to change and destroy the Constitution, and attack the rights given therein to the economically exploited and the socially oppressed. This became a major issue for Dalits, because Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar is regarded as one of the prime architects of the Constitution of India. But it was not an issue only for Dalits. It influenced vast sections of the patriotic people in the state and the country. And the MVA-INDIA election campaign rightly concentrated on this issue. This concerted campaign had the desired impact.

After this great victory in the Lok Sabha elections, the MVA-INDIA bloc will have to be even more vigilant, and redouble its efforts and its inclusivity to throw the rascals out in the ensuing Vidhan Sabha elections in Maharashtra which will take place in October 2024.

The post M’tra: A blow to BJP-NDA, a shot in the arm for MVA-INDIA appeared first on SabrangIndia.

On the other hand, Rudra exit-poll painted a different pictures for the MVA and the Mahayuti alliance, predicting a win for the MVA with 34 seats, with the Uddhav Thakrey led Shiv Sena (UBT) winning the most seats at 14, followed by Congress with 12 seats, and the Sharad Pawar NCP faction getting 8 seats. 

According to the said exit-poll, Mahayuti alliance will be able to get a total of 13 seats, with the BJP winning 8 seats, Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena getting 3 seats and Ajit Pawar’s NCP getting only 1 seat. The remaining one seat would go to other parties, completing the tally of 48 seats.

The report Rudra Survey-Exit Poll includes seat-share and vote-share data. As per the data, a 46% vote share for MVA and 43% vote share for Mahayuti is predicted. The exit poll further showed the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi gaining a 3% vote share and the remaining 8% going to others.

Rudra survey — exit polls
Maharashtra— 48 seats
MahaYuti— 13
MVA — 34
Others — 1 pic.twitter.com/HgRCFBQyhF

— Sudhir Suryawanshi (@ss_suryawanshi) June 1, 2024

A detailed region-wise analysis of the Rudra exit polls showed that out of the six Mumbai seats, 4 will go to Uddhav Thakrey-led Shiv Sena, and 1 each to Congress and BJP brings MVA’s tally to 5 in Mumbai. In the Konkan region, out of the total 6 seats, 2 are predicted to be won by BJP, while the four are to be divided equally amongst Shinde faction SS, Thakrey faction SS, Ajit Pawar faction of NCP and Sharad Pawar faction of NCP.

Furthermore, for the 8 seats of Uttar Maharashtra, 3 seats are forecasted to be won by BJP, while the rest 5 is predicted to be won by the MVA. In Vidharbh, where there are a total of 10 seats, the exit poll predicts Mahayuti winning 3 seats, 2 by BJP and 1 by Shiv Sena, and MVA winning 7 seats, 2 by SS (UBT), 4 by Congress and 1 by NCP (SS).

The full table on region-wise predictions can be viewed as follows:

The seat wise predictions also provides an insight upon some of the key seats being fought upon in Maharashtra. As per the data, in Mumbai North, BJP’s Piyush Goyal will secure a win with 62% of the vote share, defeating INC’s Bhushan Patil, who is expected to get 35%, with 3% going to other candidates. The victory margin is predicted to be 2,60,000-3,00,000 as per Rudra Exit Poll. 

In Mumbai North East, Shiv Sena UBT’s Sanjay Dina Patil is anticipated to win with 52% of the vote share, beating BJP’s Mihir Kotecha, who is projected to receive 44%, with 4% for others.

For the Mumbai North Central seat, INC’s Varsha Gaikwad is predicted to win with 51% of the vote share while BJP’s Ujjwal Nikam is expected to secure 46%, leaving the remaining 3% for others.

In the highly contested Mumbai South seat, Shiv Sena UBT’s Arvind Sawant is expected to secure a third consecutive win with 51% of the vote share. His opponent, CM Shinde-led Shiv Sena leader Yamini Jadhav, is projected to get 43%, with the remaining 6% for others.

The seat wise predictions are as follows:

It is essential to note that DB Live, a digital channel of the Deshbandhu newspaper, also released an exit poll which was similar in the lines of the Rudra exit poll and predicted MVA securing a majority number of seats in Maharashtra. According to the Deshbandhu Exit Poll, conducted in association with Electline of India agency, the MVA is forecasted to win 28-30 seats, while the Mahayuti is expected to win a total of 18-20 seats. 

Related:

Why Indian exit polls are often biased and favour the ruling party

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India’s Sixth Phase of elections marked by missing voters and discrimination: Independent Election Observers (IEO)

The post Rudra exit poll: 30 of 48 seats for MVA in Maharashtra, Mahayuti below 15 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In a different context, all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten the hands of Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, and Devendra Fadnavis, for what they and their ilk have done to the entire country and to Maharashtra in the last ten years, and particularly to Maharashtra in the last two years.

Never in the last 77 years of independent India, and in the 64 years of the existence of Maharashtra, has the state been subjected to such crass immorality and corrupt manipulation as has been done by this BJP leadership.

And this has become one of the key issues in the 2024 Lok Sabha election in Maharashtra. Let us take a quick look at the background to the recent unsavoury events.

In the last Vidhan Sabha elections in October 2019, the BJP got a setback. The total strength of the state assembly is 288. The strength of the four major parties was as follows: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – 105, Shiv Sena (SS) – 56, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) – 54, Indian National Congress (INC) – 44. The first two and the last two had fought in alliance as the NDA and UPA respectively. Although the NDA had a clear majority of 161 out of 288, there arose serious differences between the BJP and the SSover the Chief Ministership.

With the initiative taken by Sharad Pawar, the BJP was trumped by an unprecedented combination of the SS, NCP, and INC, which came into power as the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA). Uddhav Thackeray was elected Chief Minister and Ajit Pawar Deputy Chief Minister. The MVA government lasted for two and a half years, from November 2019 to June 2022, and handled the Corona crisis and other issues reasonably well.

It was in June 2022 that the BJP struck back in revenge. With a combination of threats from central agencies like the ED, CBI, and IT, together with massive monetary incentives running into several crores each, the BJP broke SS leader Eknath Shinde along with 40-odd SS MLAs. Many of them were dramatically taken by cars to Surat, and then by air to Guwahati and Goa – all BJP-ruled states – and put up there in lavish seven-star hotels, before being brought back to Mumbai for a trial of strength in the state assembly.

Uddhav Thackeray, having lost his majority due to the SS split, resigned as Chief Minister. Eknath Shinde was promptly installed as Chief Minister and Devendra Fadnavis as his Deputy. Others from the BJP and SS became Ministers. But from the very start it was perceived as a completely immoral, corrupt, and discredited regime by the people of Maharashtra.

That is precisely why the BJP was still feeling insecure. But its response was only to compound its guilt. A year later, in July 2023, using the very same combination of threats and incentives, the BJP similarly split the NCP. Ajit Pawar and 40-odd NCP MLAs broke away. In both the instances of the SS and the NCP, the defectors and their leaders were derisively referred to as “Alibaba and his 40 Chor (thieves)”. Ajit Pawar was made the second Deputy Chief Minister along with Fadnavis, and some others from the NCP were added as Ministers.

These new events underlined in even darker colours the immoral, corrupt, and discredited nature of this regime, which for all practical purposes was led by the BJP due to its numbers.

Using its clout over the Election Commission of India (ECI), the Modi-Shah regime ensured that the SS and the NCP names and their election symbols remained with the defectors. Last week, in fact, Eknath Shinde in one of his election campaign speeches openly and shamelessly thanked Modi and Shah, and not the ECI, for bestowing this favour on them.

All these machinations vertically split the Pawar family, and also some other political families. As a result, one of the most bitterly fought election contests in Maharashtra this time is the one in the Baramati seat in Pune district between Sharad Pawar’s daughter and three-time MP Supriya Sule, and Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra Pawar, who is a political novice.

A few months later, in February 2024, the BJP preyed upon former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan of the INC, who joined the BJP and was promptly elected to the Rajya Sabha. Ashok Chavan’s father Shankarrao Chavan was the Congress Chief Minister of Maharashtra during the Emergency, and he wasalso the Union Home Minister under Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao, when the Babri Masjid was demolished on December 6, 1992. Unlike the SS and the NCP, however, noother Congress leader went with Ashok Chavan when he defected to the BJP.

Den of Corruption

How did it become possible for the BJP to bait so many fish in Maharashtra into its net? The reason has been well analysedby Deeptiman Tiwary in his excellent investigative report that appeared in The Indian Express on April 3, 2024. The title of the report itself makes things crystal clear: “Since 2014, 25 Opposition leaders facing corruption probe crossed over to BJP, 23 of them got reprieve”.

A full 12 of these 25 leaders were from Maharashtra – four each from the NCP, INC, and the SS. They are Ajit Pawar, Praful Patel, Chhagan Bhujbal, and Hasan Mushrif of the NCP; Ashok Chavan, Kripashankar Singh, Baba Siddiqui, and Archana Patil of the INC; and Pratap Sarnaik, Bhavana Gawli, and Yamini and Yashwant Jadhav of the SS. Pratap Sarnaik, SS MLA from Thane, is very close to Eknath Shinde, and targeting him was a warning shot aimed at Shinde himself.

The other 13 ‘luminaries’ from the rest of the country who crossed over to the BJP are as follows: Himanta Biswa Sarma, now BJP Assam Chief Minister, ex-INC; Digambar Kamat, ex-INC Chief Minister of Goa; Raninder Singh, son of ex-INC Chief Minister of Punjab, Captain Amarinder Singh;Geeta Koda, wife of ex-INC Chief Minister of Jharkhand, Madhu Koda; Naveen Jindal, Haryana industrialist, ex-INC;Jyoti Mirdha, ex-INC; Suvendu Adhikari, now Leader of Opposition in West Bengal, ex-TMC; Sovan Chatterjee, ex-TMC Kolkata Mayor; Tapas Roy, ex-TMC leader; C M Ramesh and Sujana Chowdary, both ex-MPs of the TDP; K Geetha, ex-MP of the YSRCP; and Sanjay Seth, ex-MP of the SP.

The corruption cases against all the above are serious, but most of them have been ‘washed clean’ by putting them through the ‘special’ washing machine of the BJP, using the ‘special’ Modi washing powder! For instance, the charges against Ajit Pawar include the Rs 70,000 crore irrigation scam and the Rs 25,000 crore Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank scam; Praful Patel has been named in the scam for the purchase of 111 aircraft for Air India, and in the Air India-Indian Airlines merger; Ashok Chavan is involved in the Adarsh Society scam for which he had to quit as Chief Minister; Chhagan Bhujbal is charged with scams in the Public Works Department (PWD) and in the construction of the Maharashtra Sadan in New Delhi; and Pratap Sarnaik is involved in several assorted scams and frauds.

In 2019, Raj Thackeray of the MNS had campaigned stridently across the state for the UPA, and against the NDA.But this time he was effectively silenced by the ED and other central agencies of the Modi regime, and over a month ago he meekly announced his ‘unconditional’ support for Modi, without even fighting or claiming a single Lok Sabha seat in the state.

It is thus little wonder that many political leaders, MPs and MLAs of the NCP, SS, INC, and MNS, when faced with the stark choice of going either to the BJP, or going to jail, chose the former!

However, most of these turncoat leaders have been exposedand discredited in the people’s eyes, and they are generally looked upon as betrayers and traitors. That explains the strong sympathy wave flowing across the state for the 83-year-old NCP leader Sharad Pawar, and the 63-year-old SS leader Uddhav Thackeray. Both of them, along with INC state chief Nana Patole, have stood firm against the BJP and its conspiracies. The massive rallies of the MVA that are now taking place all over Maharashtra are an indication of which way the wind is blowing.

We shall come to the role of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) and the AIMIM a little later.

Agrarian Crisis and its Fallout

Like in the rest of the country, people’s issues like the agrarian crisis, unemployment, price rise, ration, education, health, have become burning issues in the election in Maharashtra too.

So far as the agrarian crisis is concerned, Maharashtra has for years led the country in suicides of debt-ridden farmers, as per the figures released annually by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) until 2022. According to the petition taken up suo moto by the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court, 1,439 farmers from the Vidarbha region and 1,088 farmers from the Marathwada region committed suicide in the year 2023. This was an increase over the previous year. The state is staring both at severe drought, and also unseasonal rains and hailstorms. Both have led to tremendous crop losses. Already, by the beginning of May, over 3,500 water tankers are providing drinking water daily to over 10,000 villages in 23 districts of the state. These figures are certain to greatly increase in the next few weeks.

Onion farmers from Nashik, Ahmednagar, Pune, and other districts are up in arms against the BJP central government because it imposed a ban on onion exports in December 2023. As a result, the price got by farmers plummeted to Rs 1200 to 1500 per quintal, which was much less than the cost of production.

Seeing the anger of onion farmers, the central government lifted the ban on exports in the first week of May. But it imposed conditions that the minimum export price must be 550 dollars per tonne, and the export duty must be 40 per cent. These conditions made it difficult for Indian onions to compete in the international market with onions from China, Iran, Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan. The end result was that, immediately after the lifting of the ban on exports, the price of onions got by farmers in the domestic market went up for two days to Rs 2200 to 2500; but as soon as the realisation sunk in that exports were difficult, the prices again plummeted to Rs 1200 to 1500. Onion farmers also lost hundreds of crores of rupees due to the ban on exports from December to May. The farmers’ anger was reflected in the ruckus they created in Modi’s public meeting in the Dindori constituency in Nashik district on May 15.

In the Vidarbha and Marathwada regions, the two main crops are cotton and soyabean. Lakhs of these farmers have been short changed and have got prices even below the MSP, which is Rs 6,620 to 7,020 per quintal for medium and long staple cotton respectively, and Rs 4,600 per quintal for soyabean. These prices do not even cover the cost of production. Together with natural calamities, unremunerative prices account for the largest number of farmers suicides due to indebtedness in these two backward regions of the state.

In Western Maharashtra, sugarcane and dairy farmers are facing equally serious problems. Due to the traditional one brand dairy policy in Gujarat and Karnataka, ‘Amul’ and ‘Nandini’ respectively are capturing the dairy market in Maharashtra, where the rulers have allowed several dairy brands to mushroom.

A remunerative milk price for dairy farmers has always been a contentious issue, on which there have been repeated struggles.

Although Maharashtra topped sugarcane production in the country last year with 109 lakh tonnes, followed by Uttar Pradesh with 105 lakh tonnes and Karnataka with 50 lakh tonnes, the ban on sugar exports and the ban on ethanol production imposed by the central government has created havoc for the sugarcane farmers and the sugar mills.

Due to the ethanol ban, an estimated 5.5 lakh litres of molasses worth Rs 3,000 crore are lying idle with the sugar mills. On the other hand, instead of using molasses for ethanol production, the Modi government decided to divert food grains for ethanol production, thereby denying cheap food grains to the starving poor in the country.

Unemployment and Reservations

Two recent news items indicate the enormity of the unemployment problem in Maharashtra. Recruitment to the Maharashtra Police Force began from March 5, 2024, and April 15 was the last date for making applications. For 17,471 posts, as many as 17 lakh 76 thousand young men and women submitted their applications! Of these, 41 per cent were graduates and post graduates, and they included engineers, doctors, lawyers, and management graduates! In another instance, 1,800 jail guards were to be recruited in Maharashtra. There were over 3 lakh 72 thousand applications for the same! These are all official government figures. The implementation of the MGNREGA in Maharashtra is notoriously poor for the last several years.

One more issue that has gained traction in these elections is that several industries and other large projects, which had earlier been earmarked for Maharashtra, were shifted to Gujarat, due to the pressure of the Modi-Shah-led BJP regime. This has led to great resentment, because it means an axe on employment opportunities and on the prospects of development.

It is these two aggravating phenomena – the agrarian crisis and unemployment – that have led to tremendous social unrestwhich is reflected in the demand for reservation in education and employment. The burning issue of reservation for the Maratha caste must be seen in this context. The upper crust or creamy layer of the Maratha caste has historically been a politically and economically dominant section in Maharashtra. But the agrarian crisis and unemployment have played havoc with all social groups in the state, and Marathas have been noexception. A huge statewide agitation of Marathas for reservations began before the Covid pandemic. It was recently revived under the leadership of one Manoj Jarange-Patil.

Last month, on April 4, the report of the Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission (MSBCC), led by retired Justice Sunil B Shukre, became public. An earlier MSBCC headed by retired Justice M G Gaikwad had submitted its report in 2018. The 2018 Commission surveyed 43,629 families from two villages each of 355 tehsils with more than 50 per cent Maratha population. The 2024 Commission surveyed 1,58,20,264 families across the state on a massive scale and found that Marathas constituted 28 per cent of the state’s population.

Some of the main findings of the 2024 Commission as regards the Maratha community were as follows: 43.76 per cent of women and 44.98 per cent of men are involved in manual labour for a livelihood. There is an alarming rise in the girl child marriage rate, from 0.32 per cent to 13.7 per cent in the last six years. The representation of Marathas in government services has declined from 14.63 per cent in 2018 to 9 per cent in 2024. Landlessness in the Maratha community hasincreased from 8 per cent in 2018 to 31.17 per cent in 2024. There is a drastic increase highlighting a severe community crisis as the share of Marathas in farmer suicides has gone up from 80.28 per cent in 2018 to 94.11 per cent in 2024.

Space does not permit a detailed discussion of the Maratha reservation issue, which is a complex one. Suffice it to say that the BJP-led state government in March 2024 adopted legislation in the state assembly providing for 10 per cent reservation to Marathas, over and above the existing 62 per cent reservation in the state, which already includes a 10 per cent quota for economically weaker sections (EWS). However, this did not satisfy the Maratha stir leaders who wanted reservation from the OBC quota. This is strongly opposed by the OBCs. It is not clear if the latest legislationwill be accepted by the Supreme Court, which has earlier struck down similar legislations. The political point to note is that this agitation has set the Marathas against the OBCs in the state, especially in the Marathwada region. This social divide will have its ramifications in the Lok Sabha elections.

Education, Health, Ration

So far as education is concerned, the NDA state government in February made some reactionary changes in the Right to Education (RTE) provisions. It directed through a circular that RTE admission to private schools for children of economically weaker and deprived sections would not be given if these private schools were within a one Km radius from government schools or granted schools. Under the RTE Act private schools must reserve 25 per cent of their seats for such poor children. The state government’s decision was clearly a violation of the RTE Act. Fortunately, the Bombay High Court on May 6, 2024 struck down the state government’s circular which it said was a violation of the fundamental right of citizens. The state government has also ordered the closing down of hundreds of government schools.

The state government’s ham-handed handling of the recent statewide agitations and strikes of the Anganwadi workers, the Asha workers, and Mid-Day Meal workers, was widely condemned. The government betrayed lakhs of these poor women, refusing to give them anything substantial. This exposed its reactionary attitude to the working class of the state. No efforts have been made to increase public investment in, and improve the government health care services, despite the disastrous experience of the Covid pandemic.

While the Centre has been crowing that it is giving 5 Kg grain per head per month free, it has discontinued the entitlements of cheap food grains through the public distribution system (PDS), throwing crores of beneficiaries at the mercy of the market. The state government also refuses to spend a single paisa of its own for the PDS. New ration cards are not only not given, but thousands of existing and genuine ration cards have been cancelled under the false plea that they are bogus. As a result, malnutrition is growing throughout the state, in both rural and urban areas. Malnutrition-related child deaths in tribal areas are on the rise.

The impact of all these sins of commission and omission of the BJP-led central and state governments will be reflected in the results of the Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra.

2019 Election Picture and Prospects for 2024 

The 2019 Lok Sabha election result for the 48 seats in Maharashtra was as follows: BJP – 23 seats (27.84 % votes), SS – 18 seats (23.5 % votes), Total NDA – 41 seats (51.34 % votes), NCP – 4 seats (15.66 % votes), INC – 1 seat (16.41 % votes), Total UPA – 5 seats (32.01 % votes), AIMIM (Aurangabad) – 1 seat (0.73 % votes), Independent (Amravati, later pro-BJP) – 1 seat (total of all independents and other smaller parties 3.72 % votes), Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA- Prakash Ambedkar) – 0 seats (6.92 % votes), Total – 48 seats (100 % votes).

This one-sided result of 2019 was similar to that in many other states in the country, and owed much to the jingoism created by the Modi regime around the Pulwama and Balakotincidents. An additional negative factor in Maharashtra was the VBA-AIMIM alliance putting up all 48 seats, the AIMIM narrowly winning only one, the VBA winning none but polling a substantial almost 7 per cent of the vote. The VBA was squarely responsible for the NDA winning, and the UPA losing, at least 10 Lok Sabha seats in this election. Its clear purpose was to help the BJP. The RPI led by Ramdas Athavale is, of course, a part and parcel of the NDA, and throwing Dr B R Ambedkar’s teachings to the winds, Athawale is part of the Union Ministry led by Modi.

In 2024, the MVA held a largely-attended press meet in Mumbai on April 9 and declared its seat distribution as follows: SS (Uddhav Thackeray) – 21 seats, INC – 17 seats, NCP (Sharad Pawar) – 10 seats. In contrast, there was tremendous infighting and tensions in the NDA, and it was not until three weeks later on May 2 that the final NDA seat distribution became clear, but without the NDA daring to take a press meet to announce it. It was as follows – BJP – 28 seats, SS (Eknath Shinde) – 15 seats, NCP (Ajit Pawar) – 4 seats, Rashtriya Samaj Party – 1 seat.

Factors Favouring BJP-NDA

In the 2024 election, there are the usual factors that favour the BJP-NDA. The most important is, of course, the overarching communal Hindutva consolidation that it has tried to achieve over the last one decade by harping on issues like the successful construction of the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya, the enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and its rules, the entire Kashmir question, the Uniform Civil Code, and its constant campaign of inciting hatred against Muslims, led by no less a person than Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself.

The second factor is the concerted BJP campaign across the country to reach out to, and influence, the lakhs of beneficiaries of its various schemes. The BJP is carrying out this outreach in a very systematic manner.

The third point is the massive combined power of corporate money and media, and organisation, that the BJP has been displaying in every election in the recent past. There are confirmed reports of lakhs of rupees being distributed by the BJP in thousands of villages and urban bastis throughout the state. No prizes for guessing where this money came from!

The fourth and last point is the extremely dubious role of the Election Commission itself, and the refusal of the Supreme Court to intervene. The total lack of transparency about the number of votes polled in each seat, the sudden announcement by the EC of the increase in polled votes several days after the polling, tell their own story. There is no need to dilate on what all that implies.

Advantage MVA-INDIA   

In spite of all the above factors that favour the BJP-NDA, it is most unlikely that in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP-NDA will be able to repeat, or come anywhere near, its 2019 performance. Some of the main reasons behind this conclusion have been analysed in this piece earlier, like the anti-incumbency discontent on people’s issues, the public revulsion against the corrupt and immoral acts of the BJP-NDA, the sympathy wave in favour of the original SS, NCP, and MVA, and so on.

The second element is the caste equation. How they will actually play out in each seat and region will of course differ. But overall, as analysed above, since the dissatisfied Maratha-Kunabi caste cluster is likely to generally vote against the BJP-NDA, the latter are making concerted efforts to rope in the OBCs to vote for it. Similarly, it has been an old game of the BJP to attract Hindu Dalits, because it has never been sure about neo-Buddhist Dalits. For the latter, defence of the Constitution of which Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar was one of the main architects, against the nefarious attempts of the BJP-RSS, has become a major issue now. The minorities, namely Muslims and Christians, are fully with the MVA this time.

Thirdly, it is also unlikely that the VBA will be able to play the spoiler role like last time, since people have generally seen through its game, and there is now no alliance between the VBA and AIMIM. The VBA this time tried to pull wool over people’s eyes by staging a drama of negotiating with the MVA for several weeks. The MVA declared that it was willing to give the VBA four, or even five, Lok Sabha seats. But the VBA kept on changing its positions, and as expected, eventually broke with the MVA and, like in 2019, put up its candidates in several seats. The hypocrisy of the VBA is evident from the fact that its leaders loudly attack the BJP in words, while actually helping it in deeds. Some leading Marathi newspapers in their editorials have now openly ascribed this dubious VBA role to financial dealings with the BJP.

Fourthly, the formation and consolidation of the MVA in the state since 2019, and of the INDIA bloc in the country in 2023, has led to a new enthusiasm which has been fuelled by the discontent of the people around their rising problems and by their anger against the corrupt immorality of the BJP and its servile partners in Maharashtra. Except for one seat Sangli, the MVA constituents in Maharashtra have generally gelled very well and are working in unity.

Fifth, even so far as the media is concerned, this time several popular independent media outlets and YouTube channels are being seen by lakhs of people, giving a stiff competition to the corporate Godi media, and exposing its increasing loss of credibility. Also, several social organisations have come together and have hit the streets by organising their own public meetings and other imaginative programmes under different banners, like the ‘Nirbhay Bano Andolan’, ‘Nirdhar Maharashtracha (Determination of Maharashtra)’, and so on.

By the time this piece appears in print, the fifth and last phase of voting in Maharashtra will have been completed on May 20, 2024. To sum up, if it is a reasonably fair election, it surely seems to be advantage MVA-INDIA, which should be able to win more than half the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra this time, as against only five seats which the opposition had won in the state in 2019. That in itself would be a big and significant advance in this crucial nationwide battle for the defence of the livelihood of the people, and for the defence of democracy, secularism, and the Constitution itself.

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The post The Maharashtra Lok Sabha scene 2024 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Significantly, this decisive political move isolates Prakash Ambedkar’s Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) that had announced a decision on April 7 to fight 36 seats independently in Maharashtra. That there is obvious discontent even among VBA cadres over Ambedkar’s go-it-alone decision is evident from developments in the Solapur on April 22. The VBA candidate Rahul Gaikwad released video announcing withdrawal of his candidature from Solapur Lok Sabha seat. He said his candidature can result victory of BJP so he does not want to be responsible for this therefore decided to rescind his nominations to save Babasaheb’s Constitution.

VBA candidate Rahul Gaikwad released video announcing withdrawal of his candidature from Solapur Lok Sabha seat. He said his candidature can result victory of BJP so he does not want 2b responsible 4 it therefore decided to rescind his nominations to save Babasaheb’s constitution

— Sudhir Suryawanshi (@ss_suryawanshi) April 22, 2024

Over to the Progressive Republican Party. The wordings of the short and pithy press release are relevant. They recognise Maharashtra’s socio-political reality when they say, “No Ambedkarite, Bahujan Party is presently in the position to win seats on its own in the state (Maharashtra).” Hence, backed by the understanding that Modi and his BJP cannot be defeated in isolation, the Dalit Buddhist Community has taken a decision to prevent its decisive vote from being divided and ensuring that the strongest candidates of the Mahavikas Aghadi achieve victory! This Appeal has been made by veteran Panther-Republican leader Shyamdada Gaikwad. He addressed the Press Conference at the Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh on Monday.

Present at this Press Conference were Senior Panther leader Sayaji Waghmare, former IPS officer Sudhakar Suradkar, Sanjay Aparanti, and senior journalist Sunil Khobaragade. Addressing the Press Conference collectively, the senior Dalit leaders have also made a Call Appeal for the complete Defeat the candidates of the BJP Mahayuti (Grand Alliance) while addressing the press conference.

“This Lok Sabha election is not about proving the political worth or value of the Buddhist Community in the state. This Election, poses a a grave challenge to Save the country’s Constitution and Democracy itself. Stopping Modi and his BJP is the need of the hour,” firmly stated Shyamdada Gaikwad.

Recognising the role of the Dalit Buddhist vote in the past, the gathering recognised that this was not the time to fight such a crucial election in factions. In 1990, it was the united Republican Party that prevented the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance from coming to power. Also, after the Dalit massacre in Ghatkopar’s Ramabai Colony in 1999, that alliance was also removed from power. Gaikwad, Waghmare, Suradkar, Aparanti, Khobragade mentioned this history, speaking in one voice.

Before the first phase of voting in Vidarbha, 80 organizations had created public awareness under the leadership of great thinker Dr. Yashwant Manohar and Dr. Sukhdev Thorat. These organisations have also declared their support to the PRP to defeat BJP.

Progressive Republican Party post polls

After achieving the goal of defeating the BJP in the Assembly elections in this Lok Sabha election, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar will see the formation of the real Republican Party of which he had imagined. For this we have announced the launch of the Progressive Republican Party. This announcement was also made by Shyamdada Gaekwad in a press conference.

Conclave of four hours

An intense four-hours long meeting of Republican-Ambedkarist activists had been called before the press conference lasted for four hours at Ballard Estate, Mumbai. Ambedkarite workers from Mumbai, Thane district, Navi Mumbai, Nashik had attended this meeting on Monday, January 22. Panther leader Suresh Kedare, Prof. M. A. Pawar, Dr. Sampath Sakpal, Adv. Kiran Channe, Adv. Rajay Gaikwad, Arvind Sontakke, Raju Rote, Satish Dongre, Chandrakant Jagtap, Gunaji Bansode, Jaywant Hire, Prakash Hiwale, Senior Journalist Diwakar Shejwal, Mahendra Pandagale, Ramesh Mokal, Ramesh Chakre, Sunil Kadam, Hemant Mokal, Kailas Sarode, Ashwajit Sonawane, Swapnil Kadam, Tukaram Mane, Rahul Gaikwad, Prakash Sonawane, Popat Adhangale, V. D. Mhetre, Praveen Patil, Hiraman Gaikwad, Gautam Sangle, Vijay Bagul, Ashwin Kamble, Chhabu Ghuge, Sudhakar Barve and other activists were present.

The press note has been issued by Mahendra Pandagale, now office secretary of the Progressive Republican Party.

On April 17, in a detailed Three Table Analysis, SabrangIndia has analysed whether or not the Vikas Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) would tilt any votes and in which seats in the state. After much shadowboxing and manoeuvres, Ambedkar had predictably announced his decision to go it alone in Maharashtra!

Announcing its list of 36 seats on April 12, the VBA had however left options open by declaring support for the Congress in Nagpur and Kolhapur and the NCP (Sharad Pawar) in Baramati. In Kolhapur, the INC is fighting this election with the descendant of Sahu Maharaj, Chhatrapati Sahu Maharaj in the prestigious contest. In Solapur, where Rahul Gaikwad of VBA withdrew his candidature only yesterday, Praniti Shinde from the INC is in the contest.

The Three Table Analysis dealt with 2019 figures and detailed how many votes the VBA had pulled in the 35 seats that it had contested in 2019. These figures could have some implications for the upcoming poll results, if and only if the Dalit segments and partial Muslim base stays, again, this time with the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA).

This detailed analysis may be read here.

Maharashtra’s 48 seats have been spread over five of the seven phases of the polls this time, cynics say with a particular design by the ruling Modi regime, who is ably assisted by a compliant Election Commission of India (ECI).

While five seats in Vidharbha will go to the polls on April 19 (Ramtek, Nagpur, Bhandara-Gondiya, Gadchiroli-Chimur, Chandrapur), another eight seats from Vidharbha and Marathwada vote on April 26 (Buldanha, Akola, Amravati, Wardha, Yavatmal-Washim, Hingoli, Nanded, Parbhani). Thereafter 11 of the balance 35 seats vote on May 7 (Raigad, Baramati, Osmanabad, Latur, Solapur, Madha, Sangli, Satara, Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg, Kolhapur, Hatkanangle), another 11 seats (Nandurbar, Jalgaon, Raver, Jalna, Aurangabad, Maval, Pune, Shirur, Ahmednagar, Shirdi, Beed) and finally 13 seats go to the polls on the last day of polling in the state on May 20. These are Dhule, Dindori, Nashik, Palghar, Bhiwandi, Kalyan, Thane, Mumbai-North, Mumbai North-West, Mumbai North-East, Mumbai North-Central, Mumbai South-Central and Mumbai-South. Two more phases of polling take place in other parts of the country on May 25 and June 1, before the day of counting on June 4, 2024.

SabrangIndia, with the help of an expert, analysed the voter share of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, in many of the seats where the VBA had contested, also independently in 2019. The table below details all of these. The table indicates how many total votes were polled, how many the VBA polled and the percentage of the votes that the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi polled of the votes polled and the total votes in that seat.

For instance, in the three seats in the first phase of voting where the VBA is contesting this time in 2024, if we analyse 2019 figures the VBA garnered a significant 9.75 per cent of the total polled votes in Gadchiroli Chimur which were 1142698. This number was however 7.04 % of the total votes in that constituency which were then at 1581366, still a significant number. In the Chandrapur Parliamentary Constituency, VBA polled a high 9.05 % of the polled votes and 5.86 % of the total votes (which stood in 2019 at 1910188) while in Bhandara-Gondiya it pulled in less support with 3.68% of the polled votes and 2.53 % of the total votes (which were 1811556).

It is now left to be seen how this open chasm among Ambedkarite Buddhist groups plays out in the next four phases of polls in the state.

Related:

Maharashtra: Three Tables that ask whether Prakash Ambedkar’s VBA will tilt the 2024 balance

The post Maharashtra: Save Constitution & Democracy, Dalit Ambedkarites unite, declare support to MVA appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In a major electoral shock for the BJP, 18 months before the scheduled state polls, in one of its most crucial bastions, the united candidate for the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition on Thursday defeated the party’s contender in polls to a Maharashtra Legislative Council seat in Nagpur. While the print media has covered this, news hour television news is relatively silent.  Amravati division graduates’ constituency has turned out to be the biggest upset among the five seats where Congress’ Dheeraj Lingade was leading late night Thursday, February 2. NCP retained its lone Aurangabad division graduates’ constituency in a tough battle with party candidate Vikram Kale polling 20,195 votes.

What makes the results a particularly huge blow for the BJP is that the constituency houses the headquarters of its ideological parent Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and is the home turf of prominent leaders like strongman in the state and deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and union minister, Nitin Gadkari reported both Indian Express and NDTV.

The Nagpur MLC elections were a key contest in the state after Shiv Sena dissident Eknath Shinde displaced Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, toppling the government after siding with the BJP in June 2022: the election saw the MVA’s Sudhakar Adbale win the Nagpur teachers’ seat, defeating the BJP-backed Nago Ganar, officials said.

The biennial elections to the upper house of the state legislature were mainly between the ruling tie-up of the BJP and Mr Shinde’s Shiv Sena faction and candidates backed by the MVA comprising Mr Thackeray’s Shiv Sena camp, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

The six-year term of five council members – three from teachers and two from graduates constituencies – expires on February 7 and polling was held on Monday to fill up the upcoming vacancies. Both teachers and graduates fulfilling certain criteria and enrolled as voters were eligible to exercise their franchise in these elections.

Interestingly, the Konkan teachers’ constituency recorded the highest voter turnout at 91.02 per cent, while the Nashik division graduates seat logged the lowest polling at 49.28 per cent. The teachers’ constituencies of Aurangabad, Nagpur and Konkan divisions recorded 86 per cent, 86.23 per cent and 91.02 per cent voting, respectively.

In Nagpur — the home district of BJP’s union minister Nitin Gadkari, state party president Chadrashekhar Bawankule and Fadnavis — the MVA-backed Vidarbha Madhyamik Shikshak Sangh candidate Sudhakar Adbale defeated BJP-backed sitting MLC Nago Ganar. Adbale won 16,700 votes while Ganar managed to get 8,211 votes.

The BJP managed to win a single seat of the Konkan division teachers’ constituency where its candidate Dyaneshwar Mhatre defeated sitting MLC Balaram Patil of Peasants and Workers Party (PWP) by winning 20,648 votes and completing the required quota of 16,000 votes in the first round itself.

Besides Nagpur, another closely watched fight was in the Nashik division graduates seat, where the Congress saw a rebellion in its ranks in the run-up to the polls. Three-time council member Sudhir Tambe was the official Congress candidate for the seat, but he did not file his nomination papers.

As he opted out of the contest, his son Satyajeet Tambe decided to fight as an independent. The Congress later suspended both. Satyajeet Tambde is currently leading in the polls, officials said.

According to political commentators, the BJP-Shinde Sena government suffered losses, evidently for its stand against the implementation of the old pension scheme (OPS). Fadnavis, in the state Assembly, had said the government will never go back to the OPS. However, sensing the mood of graduate and teacher voters, both Shinde and Fadnavis later altered their stand, saying they were not negative about OPS. It, however, did not prove sufficient to score victories.

The BJP said it will introspect on the results while a jubilant Congress said the BJP must have realised the effects of trying to divide others’ houses and the fact that people of Maharashtra are against the government.

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BJP trounced in Maharashtra MLC elections, but surges in Hyderabad

The post Electoral blow to BJP on Devendra Fadnavis Nitin Gadkari’s home turf appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Congress and Shiv Sena, who are part of the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance in Maharashtra, have called for a state-wide Bandh on October 11, 2021 to condemn the Lakhimpur Kheri farmer killings.

Irrigation Minister Jayant Patil announced the news while stressing that the decision for the Bandh came from the MVA alliance and not the state government. Nonetheless, their decision was in tandem with the State Cabinet’s October 6 resolution that condemned the brutal deaths of farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri, Uttar Pradesh.

Assuring that emergency services such as hospitals and milk deliveries will not be hindered, Patil said, “The Bandh will be to protest the mowing down of farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri. We see the BJP’s cruelty in trying to repress the farmers’ struggle and protests. So, we feel it is important to condemn this incident. We also learnt that the accused still haven’t been arrested. We are also condemning this callous behaviour of the Uttar Pradesh government.”

Meanwhile, media reports said that Opposition and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis criticised parties for politicising an unfortunate incident. Instead of focusing on the Lakhimpur Kheri incident, he said the alliance should talk about farmer issues in the state.

The Maharashtra Bandh decision comes a day after the farmers’ coalition Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) asked state governments to support farmers by providing basic rights like procurement, price support, disaster compensation and so on.

Moreover, the Maharashtra Bandh also shows the stark contrast between BJP-ruled governments and other states. On October 6, farmers group Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) said that Rajasthan farmers protesting in Hanumangarh district outside the Collectorate office for paddy procurement were lathi-charged by the police. The officers allegedly chased farmers. Some farmers were hospitalised.

Regardless, peasant struggles continue in other states like Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, etc. against killing of farmers.

“It would be in detractors’ own self interest to not ignore the growing strength of the farmers’ movement,” said the SKM in a press release.

Related:

Lakhimpur Kheri: Ashish Mishra still not arrested 

Lakhimpur Kheri farmer deaths: Families to light candles, not pyres until post mortem

Lakhimpur Kheri deaths: A Timeline

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‘Godi media’ on a rampage: Mowing down of farmers labeled ‘clashes’, victims ‘khalistanis’

Uttar Pradesh: Eight dead in violence at Lakhimpur Kheri, including four farmers after Minister’s son allegedly drives over them

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